Archive for the ‘bullet time’ tag

Requiem: Avenging Angel is a classic example of a game that should be very well known, but isn’t. In fact, it’s more likely that you've never heard of it, which is odd considering that it was the first ever game to feature bullet time, while having similar gameplay to Jedi Knight. That sounds like a winning formula, right?

Requiem has more going for it than just a single feature and a passing similarity, though. It was also one of the first modern games to tread in Half-Life’s shoes; trapping players in a first person perspective and allowing players to travel back and forth through some levels.

Unfortunately, Requiem had a whole heap of problems, which outweighed these strengths and stopped it from collecting acclaim of either the critical or commercial variety. Firstly, the levels were incredibly boring to fight through and, while Requiem opens strongly with a few gory levels in hellish Limbo, it eventually descends into a blocky romp through generic sci-fi locations. The obligatory sewer section doesn’t help either.

Requiem’s biggest problem, however, is simply the subject matter; Catholicism.

I don't know how, but I completely missed all of the hype and anticipation leading up to Max Payne's 2001 release. I was still very much into games at that point, but I think I must have been more into indie games and things I could get for free, so I probably wasn't reading a lot of PC Gamer previews.

The first I knew of Max Payne was when I unwrapped it at Christmas that year, though to be entirely honest that doesn't always mean it was my present. It could have been my little brother's. Either way, I played what I later learned to be one of the most anticipated and celebrated titles of all time and I enjoyed it. Not immensely, but enough to finish it and fiddle half-assedly with things like the Kung-Fu mod.

Then that was it. I've never really seen what all the fuss was about, to be totally honest.